She fell asleep on the sofa just before dawn. He watched her from his chair, unable to do otherwise. He had no desire to rest, only to think about her and her life, and its unexpectedness. She had been candid and open in a manner that redefined those ideas for him. She had looked at him with as little reservation as her speech showed. He had never imagined such simplicity. She had spoken without reserve or concealment.

When she woke, the first thing she did was to open the blind again so she could see the snow. "It's lying on the branches," she remarked.

"It piles up when there's no wind."

"How odd. The shadows look blue." She stared for at least five minutes, the light full on her face. Then she sat on the sofa. "Now you talk," she said.

"My life doesn't compare. It's ordinary, next to yours."

"Ordinary?" She laughed. "No. My life was ordinary. I've never been anywhere, never seen anything, never had any interesting experiences. I've read books and milked cows and ridden horses and watched birds and grown vegetables, and nothing else." She laughed again. "This is ordinary? You have electricity and movies and central heating and indoor plumbing and you can get any book you want. You have a telephone if you want to call someone. Lawrence is full of people and interesting things to do. This is not ordinary, not at all."

"It is if you grew up this way."

"You would be helping me," she said. "The only place I've been since I was old enough to remember was Monteverde, and San Jose once or twice a year. Everything I knew about the States I either overheard, or read, or listened to on short-wave radio. Until I came here I'd never heard rock and roll. I don't understand politics. People don't dress plainly, like Quakers or Ticos. There aren't any horses, and the cars and trucks aren't all worn out, and the roads are paved. The trees drop their leaves all together! The days are getting short. To me, 'winter' means the rainy season, in July. I'd never seen ice cubes, or blue jays, or popcorn. I don't know how to ride an escalator. So this is not ordinary. Not to me. You have to tell me everything. You promised, and I need to learn all I can, because I don't understand this place, or these people."

"I only wanted to hear about you. I'm not very good at this." He stopped. She said nothing; she was going to outwait him. "I have a brother," he began. "We're twins. Our Dad is an orthopedic surgeon. My mother is a housewife. I grew up in North Carolina. I started playing piano when I was six. I'm in a rock band. Those guys are the best friends I've ever had." He paused. "This is pathetic. It's so generic. What do you want to know?"

"What kind of twin are you?"

"We look identical, but we're not."

"What's your brother's name? What's your earliest memory? What does your mother look like? Is she a good cook? Who was your best friend when you were little? Why? What are your favorite books? Have you -- "

"Stop. I can't remember all that. One question at a time."

"Start with your earliest memory."

The snowplow went by about noon, as his voice was wearing out. She looked at the clock and said it was time to go. He loaned her a coat and accompanied her.

Outside the door of the building, she picked up a handful of snow, brought it to her mouth, and tasted it.

"I think your hand is going to get cold very fast," Wyatt said.

She dropped the snow. "I should have known it wouldn't have any taste. It's only water." With the back of a hand she brushed the flakes of snow from her lips.

He made a snowball and handed it to her. "Here."

"What is it?"

"A snowball. For throwing at things. Go ahead, it's fun."

She aimed at a tree, and he noticed the awkward windup and the movement of her shoulder. She cried "Oh, no," when the snowball shattered and left a lump on a car instead of on the tree. She laughed when she saw that she'd done no harm.

Traffic was light. They walked in the street to avoid the deep snow. She wobbled on the icy patches, and he had to steady her several times. He tried to keep her elbow in his hand but she pulled away.

At the door of her room she said, "Thank you. You've been very kind. I'm sorry to have put you to all that trouble."

"Trouble? No. That was the best conversation I've had since, I don't know. I don't think I've ever had such a good conversation." He looked, but couldn't hold his eyes on hers, and averted his gaze. "There's plenty of time. You know. Thanksgiving break. No classes. We could get some lunch."

"I really shouldn't." She handed him his coat and opened the door, which wasn't locked. "Goodbye," she said. "Thank you."

"That's all?" he asked, but the door had closed. When he returned to his apartment and found her clothes draped over the shower rod he realized that she was still wearing his.

He saw her on campus early the next week, in the distance, but didn't manage to catch her before she vanished into Strong Hall. He waited two days, so her class schedule would be the same, and positioned himself at the door, and caught her arriving. She smiled, brilliantly. He felt dizzy. Someone was singing an aria somewhere. This girl was worth giving up everything for. What am I thinking? he wondered. I've never believed in this. It only happens in songs.

"Wyatt?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

"What?"

"You didn't answer. Didn't you recognize me?"

"I was just thinking about something. How are you?"

"Fine. You probably saved me from getting ill. I didn't thank you properly. That was very kind of you." She started to touch his arm, and stopped just short.

"I have your clothes," he said.

"I have yours."

"Let's meet at the Union later. We can trade."

They arranged a time and he turned away. It was a struggle not to watch her over his shoulder.

She was waiting outside the Union when he arrived, sitting on the low brick wall between the front patio and the sidewalk. He saw her through the crowd and couldn't believe that no one looked at her as they passed.

"I'm glad you found me," she said. "I couldn't call you. I forgot your last name. I felt guilty about keeping your clothes so long." She laughed. "My roommate said it was the last thing she expected. She thought I'd had a boy in the room."

He didn't have that problem: no roommate. And any roommate would have shrugged: for Wyatt, girls came, and girls went, one after the other, in a warm and beautiful procession.

They traded sacks and she said, "See my new coat? I learned my lesson. It's heavy." She held up an arm and showed him the weight of the fabric. A navy blue wool coat; a pea coat. "It's used."

The coat was too big. Saving money was probably more important than clothing that fit. "Now you need a scarf and a pair of gloves and a hat," he said. "And warm boots, with waffle soles so you don't slip when you walk."

"I have a lot to learn. My roommate says my clothes are a crime. She says the fashion police will arrest me."

"You're allowed a phone call from jail. I'll bail you out."

She laughed and thanked him again.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" he asked.

"If it's not instant."

They walked toward the Union. He heard a dull explosion and saw the glass of the door bow out toward them and distort their reflections. He stopped. No one else had noticed; they were going about their business. He looked at Ada. She was staring at the glass. Then she looked at him. The wind lifted her hair momentarily and she patted it back into place.

"What was that?" she asked.

"A sonic boom."

"You'll have to explain that."

He opened the door for her, feeling a doubleness, an unfamiliar dissociation. He watched himself walk to the counter with her, buy two cups of coffee, and sit at a table.

"Now, about that sonic boom," she said. "What was that?"

"When an aircraft travels faster than sound, it makes a shock wave. I don't understand it."

The feeling of being split faded as he talked. Ada wondered aloud about the physical principles that aircraft use to stay aloft. He drew a sketch on a paper napkin. She asked whether she could keep it, and tucked it into her pocket.

"You flew, to come here," he said. "You'd never flown before?"

"No. It was so different from everything else. All my life I walked on the ground, and then I was in the air, and it was like seeing, like seeing from heaven. I looked out the window the entire way. My neck got sore from looking in one direction for so long, even when we were in the clouds and I couldn't see through them. But I like it better when you can see the land. All the rivers and the highways were tiny, and so were the cities at night in the dark with their lights on and the lights of the cars. It was magical. I can't explain. Everything opened up. It was like the feeling I get when I learn something, but it was physical, it was real."

The excitement he'd felt while listening to her at his apartment returned. Prompt her, that was the way to keep her talking. "This place must seem strange to you."

"Yes. I didn't tell you everything. After I got here, it was very hard. The campus feels like a town. It's much bigger than I expected. And I'm used to looking at everyone and saying hello to them and stopping and talking, but there are so many people here, and I don't even know them. I knew everyone in Monteverde. Everyone. I knew them by name, and who their parents are, and their children and husbands and wives. It's so odd, being among strangers, in crowds all the time. I tried to nod to everyone the first day, but I had to stop. There were too many people, and they ignored me or acted surprised. Nobody nodded back. The second day there were more students, and the third day even more. I'm trying not to look at people, but it isn't easy." She stared at her coffee. "I didn't mean not to tell you those things the other night. I just couldn't keep going, talking about myself. It seemed so egotistical. But I don't want you to think that I have everything, that since I got here I have everything managed, the way I did with the travelling. I didn't mean to deceive you."

"That's hard to believe."

"No. I really didn't want to deceive you."

"I meant, it's hard to believe you'd be deceptive."

"Oh." She was mollified, but she had stopped.

He asked, "Is it still difficult?"

"Yes. It's so completely different. I miss the green. Everything was green at home. I used to go barefoot when it was dry. Sometimes I wore sandals. When it rained, I wore rubber boots. Here, I wear these." She pointed to her sneakers. They were bright red Keds, the sort Wyatt had worn in grade school. Not even children wore those any more. "It's just like Mrs. Scattergood said. Everything is different. All the roads are paved. People don't act the same. Some of the boys are so rough and loud they're frightening, and everyone is always in a hurry. Especially when they drive. There's so much traffic that sometimes I'm afraid to cross the street."

The silence was beginning to stretch. "Too many people?" he asked.

"Yes. There are more people in the cafeteria for dinner than there were in my entire village."

"What do you miss?"

"My father and brother. And recognizing everyone. And the greenness and the plants. And the silence."

"Silence?"

"Yes. It's very noisy here. Quakers like silence, I think. We sit silently at Meeting, you know."

"Yes, I read that somewhere."

"I didn't expect to miss Meeting."

"There's a Quaker group here in Lawrence. You can probably find them in the phone book."

"Thank you. I'll look them up."

He sipped his coffee. It was getting cold. He drained the cup.

"You know," she said, "the evening before classes started my roommate invited all her friends over and they talked. They all went to the same high school. I looked at those girls and every one of them was beautiful. They had perfect hair and perfect teeth, and nice clothes, and they all knew exactly what to do. They didn't have any problem in the orientation, they all knew what everything meant. I thought, why am I here? Even if I get the academic things and the bureaucratic things figured out, like getting a social security number, I'll never fit in. Those girls are from a different world. They asked me out for pizza, and one of them offered to let me drive her car. I don't even know how to drive a car. It's such a fundamental thing. Everyone knows how to drive a car, don't they? I'd never even used a phone, and the first time I needed to, my roommate had to show me how, and she looked so sorry for me... So when they invited me and I didn't know what pizza looked like I thought I might embarrass myself again. I said no thank you, and after they left I went in the bathroom and cried. Then I wrote my father and asked to come home." When he didn't answer she said, "I shouldn't have bothered you with this. I haven't told anyone these things. You're such a good listener, I just kept going, and then it all came out."

"I didn't know what to say."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you with this." She pulled on her coat and picked up her bag.

"No," he said. He grabbed for her coat and in reaching out snagged his sleeve on the corner of the table. The button from his shirt cuff popped loose and went rolling across the floor. She burst into laughter.

"I've never seen that before," she said. She stepped on the button, to stop it rolling, then picked it up and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said. "Don't go. I like listening to you. I'll sit here as long as you want to talk. Besides, you haven't told me what your father said when he wrote back."

"Do you mean it? You're not just being polite?"

"No. I'm not being polite. I'm not polite. I want to hear it. What did your father say?"

She sat down. "It took a month for the letter to get here. He forgot to send it by air mail."

"But what did he say?"

"Oh, he told me to stay. He said things would get better."

"He's right. It was hard for me when I first started, being halfway across the country. I can't imagine what it must be like for you. But I got used to it, and one day I was walking along and it occurred to me that everything was okay, I'd stopped feeling sad and uncomfortable and I was actually enjoying school. You will, too."

"Thank you."

"It's true. I'm not making it up. Be patient."

"That's what my father always says. 'Be patient'."

"I just have one question."

"What's that?"

"Have you had pizza yet?"

"Yes."

"Did you like it?"

"Yes. Very much."

"Stay here. I'll be back."

The pizza bar closed in ten minutes. He ran down the stairs and ordered a large supreme. They seemed to take longer than usual to make it. He watched the clock and hoped she would still be there, and ran back up the stairs with the pie.

"Here you go." He opened the box and set it on the table. "I'll get some soda."

"Thank you. I forgot dinner." She reached for a slice, and stopped. "Oh, no."

"Is something wrong?"

"I don't have any money. I can't pay you."

"My treat."

He had to explain what he meant by "my treat", and then persuade her that she didn't need to split the cost. He managed to convince her by pointing out that there was too much for one person, and that it would go to waste if she didn't help him eat it.

They talked about cheesemaking while they ate. "You let it ferment," she said. "Maybe curdle is a better word. Then you separate the curds from the whey. The curds are the solid part. The whey is the watery milk. You give the whey to the calves. You take the curds and you heat them and press the water out and add salt and pack it down, and you have cheese. All you need is starter. It has bacteria and enzymes. Cheese is a lot of work. You have to do it every day, or the cows' udders get full and they suffer. We make cheese because milk spoils fast. Our cheese is wonderful. Much better than this. This is bland. Our cheese tastes different, depending on what the cows eat. It's always strong."

They talked for hours, and she was very cheerful. "I don't understand the jokes here," she said. "No. I understand some of them, I don't see why they're funny. Is there a code I don't know?"

"A code?"

"Light bulb jokes, knock-knock jokes, elephant jokes. Are there secret meanings?"

"No. You have to get it. It's the surprise in the punch line that makes you laugh."

"I wish I had a sense of humor. I think that when you understand people's jokes, and their dreams, that's when you truly know them."

When the Union closed he walked her home. A few flakes of snow floated in the air, little more than points of light in the wind, the great wind that often howled over the top of Mount Oread in winter, buffeting the walkers at the top of the hill where the important buildings, and most of the classes, were. Ada clutched her coat around herself. Her face was red, and she shivered, but she said nothing.

For the next couple of months they met like this and walked to the library or the Union and talked and studied. Her questions were limitless. She wanted to know about his family, his childhood, his music; she wanted to know what high school had been like for him; she couldn't understand why so many of her classmates didn't take their studies more seriously, or see the opportunities they were wasting; she wanted to know what it felt like to drive a car; she didn't understand the murders of civil rights workers, or the Vietnam war. Most of her questions he couldn't answer, some because he didn't know the answers, others because he didn't know how to express them. He was learning how little he understood of what he had always taken for granted, believing that he knew, but without ever having paid attention, not having asked why since he was a child, as she was asking him now.

He never tired of hearing her voice, or of looking at her. Often, he had to look away, so she would not see him staring, and perhaps guess the depth of his feeling. He saw that she was very lonely: her family was distant, her mother had died. Her only friend was her roommate Jackie, and Jackie was a counsellor as much as a friend. There was no one for her to confide in, but that didn't matter. She was patient, she was determined, she would make her own luck. What she sought would come to her. He knew she would not fail.